In Today's News: "If Jesus Christ Gets Down Off the Cross and Told Me Trump Is with Russia, I Would Tell Him, 'Hold on a Second. I Need to Check with the President'"

Over the last week, the Globe called dozens of evangelical pastors in Alabama and elsewhere who had supported Moore before the allegations emerged, gleaning from a list of names posted to the Facebook account of the candidate’s wife.

None of the nearly 10 pastors reached by phone said the allegations of sexual misconduct changed their views about Moore. Several said the allegations made them more proud to vote for the former judge.

Repeatedly, the pastors attempted to discredit Moore’s accusers in personal terms, with some dismissing their emotional stories as "crocodile tears" and "fake news."

'I don’t know how much these women are getting paid, but I can only believe they're getting a healthy sum,' said pastor Earl Wise, a Moore supporter from Millbrook, Ala.

Wise said he would support Moore even if the allegations were true and the candidate was proved to have sexually molested teenage girls and women.

This article says "conservative evangelicals have rallied to the defense of Moore." Graham is the only major figure cited. The rest are marginal types like this guy: pic.twitter.com/Yeg17UEbeX

I don’t think that’s quite right. In between “major” & “marginal” there’s local, which is where most of these guys are. Media focus on elite evangelical Trump critics blinded it to majority support. https://t.co/GB0JeNu14F

A man who said he voted for President Trump in 2016 said on Monday that if Jesus Christ said Trump colluded with Russia, he would still have to check with the president to see if it was true.

"If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, 'Hold on a second. I need to check with the president if it's true,'" said Mark Lee, one of six Trump voters to appear on a CNN panel Monday morning.

Ed Kilgore, "How About Some Democratic Outreach to Liberal People of Faith for a Change?":

But a preelection survey from PRRI showed Trump leading Clinton among white mainline Protestants by ten points, and among white Catholics by seven points. And that was in a poll that had Clinton leading overall by nine points. While some attention has been paid after the election to Trump’s unusually strong performance among white Catholics, his apparent win among mainline Protestants has been ignored almost entirely.

Takeaways:

1. Every time a case like the Roy Moore case comes along, the media and religion commentators act shocked — shocked, I tell you! — at the discovery that white evangelical Christians, particularly in the bible belt, would vote for any dead armadillo or any live (but Republican) sexual predator over any Democratic candidate imaginable.

2. When a case like Roy Moore comes along, we're treated to yet another round of meaningless discussion of how there are liberal movements and liberal groups among American Christians, who do not support the Donald Trumps and the Roy Moores of the world, and who represent a viable check to white evangelical Christianity.

4. As Ed Kilgore notes, pre-election polls in 2016 showed a majority of mainline white Protestants supporting Donald Trump — though this fact is almost never discussed in the media and has been largely ignored by both pollsters and journalists following the 2016 election.

5. Conclusion: the U.S. does not have merely a white evangelical problem. It has a white Christian problem. When it comes to building a more humane society for everyone, a sustainable democracy, white Christians have made themselves a huge part of the problem and not a part of the solution. Period. Full stop.

6. Until all Christians in the U.S. who pull against the racism and ethnocentric selfishness of white Christian voters band together and pull against the identification of white Christianity in the U.S. by a majority of its adherents with white supremacy, repudiation of the poor, lack of concern for the common good, the nation cannot and will not move forward, and its democracy will be imperiled.

7. And for any thinking, conscientious human being anywhere in the world seeking to assess the claims of the Christian gospel, what white churches in the U.S., whether left, right, or middle, say about the gospel will lack all credibility.

Jim Wallis, "A year into Trump's presidency, Christians are facing a spiritual reckoning":

President Trump is an ultimate and consummate worshiper of money, sex and power. American Christians have not really reckoned with the climate he has created in our country and the spiritual obligation we have to repair it. As a result, the soul of our nation and the integrity of the Christian faith are at risk.

This is not Christianity. Rather, it is an extreme Republican religionism that stands by party and regressive policy no matter what. It's not the gospel of Christ, but a gospel of greed. It is the religion of racism and lies, not the religion of redemption and love.

If you ignore the witness of teenage girls,
if you tell refugees "go back where you came from,"
if you close your doors to dirty field laborers,
if you would turn a child over to a tyrant:

"We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers." Bayard Rustin, Quaker gay activist

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About Me

I'm a theologian who writes about the interplay of belief and culture. My husband Steve (also a theologian) and I are now in our 47th year together. Though the church has discarded us (and here, here, here, and here) because we insist on being truthful about our shared life, we continue to celebrate the amazing grace we find in our journey together and love for each other.
We live in hope; we remain on pilgrimage....
A note about my educational background: I have a Ph.D. and M.A. in theology from Univ. of St. Michael's College, Toronto School of Theology; an M.A. in English from Tulane Univ.; and a B.A. in English from Loyola, New Orleans.